mini normal 2226; who won

[Titus]

The setup should not have been passed as-is because it's too townsided in hindsight given the interactions I didn't account for. Sorry. <3

I'll let Math know.

[mastina]

Needless to play even though the setup was broken town deserved this win and played way better than scum.

I'm inclined to agree with this btw.

[Datisi]

thanks, mastina, glad to hear you're taking our feedback (and i'm glad to hear that my setup inspired someone else to design one!)

i've been in the situation of putting a loyal modifier onto a role, thinking it probably won't impact anything majorly, and then silently crying in the mod pt when the players figure out how to abuse it, so. definitely a crappy feeling.

[MathBlade]

Hey I need to say a majority of those posts were probably a bit harsher than how I meant to take it and I am sorry if it did

I was playing ATE hard to try to get Not Mafia another day while trying to shade PRs to give him room.

Thank you for listening Mastina and I owe you a longer response atm but I think the biggest thing is just the odds of a guilty N1 + traitor.

I would love to see this idea play out in a large and I think it would work better.

[Titus]

thanks, mastina, glad to hear you're taking our feedback (and i'm glad to hear that my setup inspired someone else to design one!)

i've been in the situation of putting a loyal modifier onto a role, thinking it probably won't impact anything majorly, and then silently crying in the mod pt when the players figure out how to abuse it, so. definitely a crappy feeling.

I wasn't even trying to abuse it. There was just only one real way to play it.

[Aristeia]

Titus you played really well and I think we were very lucky to have you be our protective!

[Prism]

Finally home and can post my writeup from a few days back. Too tired to really go back and revise: Sorry to those whose points I've already touched on in my earlier phone posts!

All of this was written sometime Day 4 so it might also be a bit outdated even with the game itself.

[Prism]

Also very glad to see mastina comment-I have some setup comments I'll give when I have some energy in the morning

[Prism]

Hey everyone! This was a great game to watch and play in, and I have a lot of comments & feedback that I’ve been excited to share. I took a limited notes PT where you can see what I was thinking & when, along with some funnier spectator commentary post-replace out.

I have a ton of comments about this game: I’m a really big fan of breaking down specific actions and getting into the weeds of games, and I don’t believe in “saving” tactics for future games. I like to be fully transparent and show my entire hand, so even if you don’t I hope you find it interesting.

First, I want to apologize for replacing out. I felt especially bad for Alchemist, who took it as a town ragequit. The truth is just that I had the chance to take an extended roadtrip that I couldn’t pass up-I’ve been traveling ever since! While I didn’t find it the most exciting game until after I replaced out, I had still been very eager to roll scum and was sad to have to leave it.

Second, all of my rage was fake. I don’t like being that way, but given for a bit I had a history of really tilting off the end of the earth as town. While I have reined that in, I wanted to squarely put it away beyond question, and I felt faking it once as mafia would help curb anyone scumreading me for lack of tilt or trying to induce it intentionally.
For a more broad commentary on the game, I am convinced Datisi is fucking jacked, forget testosterone this dude is fucking roided up on tren, hits the gym EVERY DAY, deltoids the size of my head. Stellar game by town overall and a well deserved win. Titus/Chaos also played really strongly while the rest (eg. Lukewarm, Gamma, etc.) didn’t let their own ideas get in the way. I think scum definitely had winning chances up until the no kill. I think that N1 kill was a huge, huge mistake. Scum did get a bit “unlucky” with the N1 checks, but I think the bigger issue was

who

the PRs were. Titus, Chaos, Gamma, and the Koba slot were all very viable elim targets that got taken off the table until the NM gambit!

Most importantly, I have a lot of more specific feedback and advice to give! You can find it for most of the players below.

Spoiler: Lukewarm

tl;dr: You started playing at time where Chaos’s meta is viewed as scummy. Hop in the time machine, see it’s NAI and look for other ways when style demands it. Players can fake very complex processes as scum when there’s no real disadvantage to doing so, and sometimes getting townread really is the only point.

First, it’s a joy to play with you, and it’s great to see you keep playing and have so much enthusiasm. You’re one of the most exciting new players to come out of the last year or so!

I have two real pieces of feedback for you. First, I want to touch on the Chaos tunnel. You’ve started playing at a time when hyperposting & emotional play is put at a premium. It’s not impossible for more reserved players to be town but it’s generally viewed as less likely. Chaos is a very old-school player that doesn’t fit cleanly into this meta, and I think focusing more on progressions & the guilty would have gone a long way. Town knew there was a traitor after Umlaut flip and there’s just no way they bus at that point. In other words, Chaos’s style might be difficult to get a solid read on, but some research/meta would have revealed a lot of it very NAI. That doesn’t mean townread him for it, but it does require you to put in more work to solidify it.

Second, I want to touch on your read on me. There were so many pieces to my play that it’s always very hard for me to distill, but we’ll focus on just the bit about the selective ISOs. The origin of this was that I came up with the ISO-petapan claim first as a means of incredible flexibility and a plausible evolution of previous play. Immediately after I thought of that, I skimmed you to see what I would be forced to do. If you were obvious town, I would have delayed it as long as I could (see: my comments to Gamma). But you weren’t, and so this gave me a bonus opportunity. I had no intention of ever getting you voted out or even trying to- if you were scummy at the moment, you could still flip to UTR on a dime by virtue of inexperience-but I had every confidence after skimming that your play was different enough to justify a scumread on my end, which I hoped would drift to a mutual townread. I expected this to be a lengthy progression that shifted to townreading you over time, but I always hoped that you’d make that EXACT connection (Town Prism immediately ISOs me for an easy read). If I needed to I would explain why I started with your ISO around the time of Elo, but I really wanted you to make the connection on your own at a time that was advantageous for me by nudging you or getting more contentious Day 3/4. When you made it virtually instantly I was

astounded

.
So where did you go wrong in buying this as an actual

towntell

if it’s plausible for me as town? Let’s review the key post:

I feel like Town!Prism starts with a Lukewarm iso, and that scum!Prism doesnt?
Like, her one and only game with me, I was so townread that it hurt, so I don't think that scum!Prism starts with me as their target to try and get a fake scum read / push a miselim. But I also, tunneled Prism somewhat hard that game, so she also would not think of me as an easy pocket target either I don't think.

Reviewing the above, I knew I could get away with it on the virtue of the difference, but

pushing a miselim

especially was never the point. You seem to understand that it was possible my only aim was for a townread, but I think you put too much stock into getting tunneled by you

when I was town trying to scumhunt

, which is a whole different ballgame than when I am

scum trying to be townread

. None of this has to be for a longterm pocket, a big strategic vision, or playing the game around you completely either. I just needed some capital that I can use later down the line, so I did this on the side. It is also worth noting that this capital in the form of a townread is especially nice when I know I can get it for a

scumread on town

, as opposed to for a

townread on town

. (ie. Get townread+not box myself in by narrowing PoE, essentially I’m getting townread for free).
I was actually disappointed when you made the connection early because a slow burn, “Eureka!” moment in elo where you made that desired connection would have had so much more effect.

Spoiler: Aristeia

tl;dr: Preflips bad, not enough info on Meg alone to justify fighting against a third party, why would I ever be worried, intentionally kept you on edge to prevent you from connecting with other towns+to revisit Meg

Long wall: There’s a lot to break down here from the Day 1 play. I came in expecting to get some heat from you, but did not expect the specific angle & force behind it, and while I thought my entrance was plausible as town I definitely see a world where I make a more cerebral/laid back one.

There are some obvious difficulties with connecting me/Meg to begin with. I think preflip associations are generally terrible to begin with, but there’s just no world where I risk getting chainflipped like that Day 1. Even if I save Meg for a day, inexperience means he would be flipped a day or two later. I can’t play both slots simultaneously, it’s just a matter of time.

As scum in that situation I am going for a townread 100% of the time regardless of what Meg is, and coming out that hard means he is very likely town.

Even on willow in Draft Mafia I was again going for a townread regardless of what flipped.

Iirc your counterpoint to Meg town/Prism scum was simply that I wouldn’t derail it given that I was the counterwagon, but the truth is just that…that was just never a concern? Why would I ever be worried about that?

That’s from the Meg/Prism team perspective, but crucially this all would have been nipped in the bud if you realized that

you seriously did not have enough information to decisively read Meg

, and even if you got that with the flip trying to preflip was really putting the cart before the horse and in fact got in the way of your read on Meg.
Stopping at the me/Meg connection being wrong would be missing a huge piece of this. I disagreed with your Farkran characterization in that I thought what I was saying wasn’t walls of nonparsable garbage akin to a flail, but there was a lot more going on there. As alluded to in my notes PT, I was very determined to react in ways that reinforced the scumread on me in strictly tonal fashion. While the rage/tilt was intentional and kind of decided pregame, this was my primary means of keeping you in check. My thinking was that if you felt guilty or bad, this would prevent you from sorting other slots more rationally. I wanted you on edge, worrying about scum Prism but unwilling to pursue it as it was mostly tonal, in order to A) Outright prevent you from connecting with any other town B) Guarantee a Meg/Chaos flip and avoid a flashwagon on Umlaut C) Give my partners significantly more room to operate. Making sure you don’t actually vote me was important, and there was only one post where I really risked it all game.. It is worth reviewing this post in my notes PT.

To be more explicit: The payoff here wasn’t to drown the game in garbage, or just to get a Meg flip. Sometimes I legitimately wanted the interactions to end, though I was more than happy to use the extensions as reasons to avoid rereading/giving thoughts on other players (see: Gamma). It was entirely to keep you from connecting with other players, and you should have either called the bluff or focused more on talking with others.

I didn’t keep track as much of Day 2 on, but I thought by just sheeping/AFKing the rest of the game you gave up something valuable, which was seriously connecting with the other town. Fundamentally I think this game would have been won a lot sooner had you been a UTR. On a personal note, while I was ready to flip it for diversity’s sake, I definitely don’t relish being scum: I am instead easily bored, and Day 1 definitely fit that bill.

Spoiler: Datisi

I don’t have too many comments for you other than what

didn’t

work for me. I had several things planned with you but just felt like I did them out of order. No reaction was probably a great call, if only to deny me further guidance, but I think it denied yourself some of the opportunity to sort. At the end of the day, I think you just bought some of the AtE, but at no point did you throw and you hardcarried together with Titus. It was a joy to play with you again and I was happy to see you succeed and I’m sorry that we didn’t get to play more-plus that I was intentionally so abrasive
As far as I’m concerned you should walk around all week with this song on loop, absolutely balled out and punished the scumteam for switching the kill off you N1:

Spoiler: Chaos

There’s a school of thought about remaining intentionally more scummy/a potential elim as an investigative so you live longer. I don’t know if that was what you were doing, if so great job, but in general I think Day 1 could have been an outright disaster had you been outed. Your play after N1 was stellar but D1 was very shaky and could have been improved with more activity or realtime interaction as opposed to the more wall-style typical of older players.

Spoiler: Titus

I have no real feedback, I don’t know exactly how you got snowed by Math but that was the only clear error. Instead I just want to say that between this and FGO it’s a joy to see you in good form & playing more aggressively. Some theories were still out there but you did your job mechanically, were vocal, and your reads were generally just fine and it was trivially easy for others to spot you as town. Extremely solid game!

Spoiler: Vulture

Not too much to say here other than that I fully expected my encouraging comments to have the opposite effect, and was infact trying to demoralize you. I had an instinct that you scumread my slot and I think it was a mistake to not push it if I was right. The tilt was more winging it to sell it while also knowing you wouldn’t scumread it.
At the end of the day you have to play the game to be successful at it.

Spoiler: Gamma Emerald

Generally this was one of your better games-never being too inflexible especially-but on a smaller level, I think you were in the best position to nail my slot as scum. I don’t know if you just avoided trying because of always townreading me when I was scum before or what, but exactly what Lukewarm picked up on-that Luke was a great candidate for a first ISO read on the basis of being easy-should have brought up huge alarm bells for you. I have literally never read you incorrectly, and generally I get it right almost immediately. I put you as an early ISO candidate on my list because of this, but I stalled hard for actually doing it (leveraging Pooky breathing down my neck) because I really didn’t want to take you off the table as an elim.

…And you just really let me give no read on you at all and delay it indefinitely. Not immediately coming in and giving SOME read on you should have been a red flag the size of Texas.

Spoiler: Umlaut

I think you just straight up needed to post more, as I alluded to in the scum PT. Understanding that T3 was a prime elim target whose inexperience would lead them astray as the game went on, while Datisi had it all: unvoteable, potential PR, above average reads, etc. would have been a huge boon. The double guilties were validation that while you may have made it past Day 1 you needed to be more vocal throughout the day to survive longterm. You don’t have to no-life it but posting a few more times a day would go a long way.

You can afford to get lurker default voted when there’s 3 real scum, but with only 2+other PRs lurking in the distance that’s a very dangerous game.

Spoiler: MathBlade

Absolute hero shit, I have very little feedback for you, Sisyphus up the goddamn mountain, absolutely got hung out to dry and I’m sorry I had to leave you like that. I didn’t see/don’t remember the T3 kill justification but I would really advise weighting likelihood of being an elim over PR hunting; as long as T3 wasn’t a straight up cop it would have been worth killing a VT Datisi over him. T3 is quite young has a lot of potential but right now his tendency to overgame+inexperience leave him perpetually up against the wall.

I also think you got way too worried about me/Pooky Day 1 when in reality there was nothing to worry about, but it was a very minor mistake IMO and I get why you went to bat, especially when we couldn’t communicate directly.

It’s also a shame that the Sisyphean carry kind of backfired with the N_M gambit, but I don’t think you were wrong for trying.

Spoiler: T3

I didn’t see your play as much this game but honestly? Keep playing games and keep making mistakes, you’re doing fine and growing fast. It’s fine to miss sometimes on Meg/me, you get bit by tone/WIM and slowly your lesson.

Spoiler: Meg

Generally I think town didn’t have the information needed to confidently flip you, and that was really more criminal on Pooky/Datisi’s end. I think you did a good job with not townreading me just for defending you, which is especially difficult when people think I have to be your partner. I agree with Datisi that you worked a little too much in abstracts, and your extended V/LA got in the way in that even when you

did

give more substantive posts, they were handwaved away as “only because we called him out” There’s not much you could have done about a V/LA or this time, but I think that provides a lot of useful feedback for even when you’re not on V/LA

Spoiler: Not_Mafia

see notes PT, absolute chad, no one goes harder than the miltank man, udder made of solid fucking steel. I do think you played too passively Day 2/3 and could have benefited a lot from just posting an occasional one liner to pressure.

For the rest, I didn’t take close enough note to really have anything substantive to say, my apologies. I do again feel a bit bad for Alchemist in that that was a very reasonable conclusion but…unfortunately just wrong.

I touch on what I think are lot of my own mistakes/missed opportunities in my PT (and there were many!), and am also eager for feedback on my play if you have any to return.

[Lukewarm]

First, I want to touch on the Chaos tunnel. You’ve started playing at a time when hyperposting & emotional play is put at a premium. It’s not impossible for more reserved players to be town but it’s generally viewed as less likely. Chaos is a very old-school player that doesn’t fit cleanly into this meta, and I think focusing more on progressions & the guilty would have gone a long way.

This is fair.

Although, it was not exactly that he was not posting that resulted in me tunneling. I actually think it was the immediate omgus that kind of locked me in

I don't just tunnel everyone who is low content. My initial scum read was more that even in the posts he was making, there were very few stances being taken. Which was enough for him to be my new area of focus after Ari towned it up. But the immediate omgus felt more like scum who needed to discredit me as opposed to town looking to see if my suspicions were genuine.

But yes. I very much did get caught in that tunnel even when there was evidence pointing me the other way

[Aristeia]

Thanks for the feedback Prism.

You are brilliant and I regret the misfortune that we could not have played together for longer.

[Titus]

I have no real feedback, I don’t know exactly how you got snowed by Math but that was the only clear error. Instead I just want to say that between this and FGO it’s a joy to see you in good form & playing more aggressively. Some theories were still out there but you did your job mechanically, were vocal, and your reads were generally just fine and it was trivially easy for others to spot you as town. Extremely solid game!

Math and I talked about it IRL and my assumptions were logically incorrect.

1) Gambler's Fallacy
2) Math having an off game/not getting my crumbs. I supposed Math!scum shoots me n1. Definitely n2. Math totally missing my D2 crumb heal is kinda wow.
3) Math played to get eliminated and that usually sets off tone bells.
4) Math had more of a stubborn streak than he usually does.

[Titus]

Oh and the out there theory was just me not wanting to accept the fact nm no killed. Fmpov, the neighborizer was possible though.

[Prism]

First, I want to touch on the Chaos tunnel. You’ve started playing at a time when hyperposting & emotional play is put at a premium. It’s not impossible for more reserved players to be town but it’s generally viewed as less likely. Chaos is a very old-school player that doesn’t fit cleanly into this meta, and I think focusing more on progressions & the guilty would have gone a long way.

This is fair.

Although, it was not exactly that he was not posting that resulted in me tunneling. I actually think it was the immediate omgus that kind of locked me in

I don't just tunnel everyone who is low content. My initial scum read was more that even in the posts he was making, there were very few stances being taken. Which was enough for him to be my new area of focus after Ari towned it up. But the immediate omgus felt more like scum who needed to discredit me as opposed to town looking to see if my suspicions were genuine.

But yes. I very much did get caught in that tunnel even when there was evidence pointing me the other way

Not letting someone scumread you for free? Sounds like you were already applying some of feedback point #2 WHAT A BALLER

(I think you're spot on with the selfdiagnosis in the second paragraph)

Thanks for the feedback Prism.

You are brilliant and I regret the misfortune that we could not have played together for longer.

I'm glad you appreciated it, but the second part really isn't the point of this and I'd much rather get real feedback/discussion. My play this game had massive holes.

[Prism]

Oh and the out there theory was just me not wanting to accept the fact nm no killed. Fmpov, the neighborizer was possible though.

The depth of the MathBlade Mental Ocean-whose currents are stormy, turbulent, dark, contradictory and concurrent, the manifestation of all assorted chaos in the universe-will forever be unknowable to me and I have accepted this. I applaud you for pressing forward with determination and resilience.

Given the state of the NRG it was also more of a one-off that this setup made sense so I don't blame you for the off mechanics, either. Really stellar game and again after our disagreements in WH13/Happy Face it's been great watching you have a small renaissance

[MathBlade]

Yeah agreed.

I just have had a weird week and kinda don’t feel like doing post game stuff,

Thanks for the comments Prism. I will read them later just not in the mood for readwalls.

And I thought T3 was unpocketable PR and Datisi was.
I like keeping incorrect obvTown around then I kill them later so town gets wrong reads
T3 I thought was PR never getting killed and not manipulatable unlike Titus or Datisi or Gamma

*hides before they disagree*

[MathBlade]

So I fell for T3’s post
(Two games in a row I have fallen for a d1 PR slip ugh)

I need a town game so I remember what it’s like lol

[Aristeia]

well for feedback, honestly when you joined the game I was kind of happy to see you and then from your posting I immediately felt a sense of dread and fear. It was like a violent reaction in my soul - it felt like something bad was coming. I can't really explain that feeling?

Usually when I read your posting I can feel the goodness and the light, here I just felt a weird sense of fear in my gut.

There were many times I wanted to vote you because I felt more sure you were bad then Meg was but I'm not sure why I didn't. Possibly laziness? Likely a fear in my conviction that I was just hopelessly off base. I just had a feeling that you were making the moves you needed to in order to control the game rather than joining as an uniformed fellow voyager on the quest with us.

You've said many times before that you don't enjoy being a town dictator and it was almost jarring in a way how you entered the game - it didn't feel uninformed to me, and it could be true you're just a much better town player than I am so when you emulate your town game it looks informed to me when really it is just how you play?

I felt badly about your "rage" towards me but I didn't think it made sense? I wasn't sure what I had done to earn such a reaction and it felt performative to me but I did feel badly about making the game unenjoyable for you and everyone else - sometimes my paranoid fits do make games feel unplayably toxic.

When you replaced out I did feel badly about it because I had some doubts about my behavior leading to you deciding such a game was unplayable and unenjoyable but I have a fairly bad memory and I really just joined the game to post gifs so I kind of just pressed "erase" on d1 and decided to pretend it didn't even happen.

Hopefully the next time we play it will be more fun and you will have the time to stick around

[DkKoba]

gif gang

[DkKoba]

also id love some credit but meh lol

datisi chaos and ari were based af

[Aristeia]

You played fantastically Koba

[Datisi]

when scum pts

[tris]

omg sorry

[tris]

ok they're public now :)

[Datisi]

seanzie trolling umlaut was hilarious